PTI Blog

The practice of public or commercial teaching of the Filipino martial arts (FMA) is relatively new compared to the martial arts of northern Asia (Karate, Kung Fu, etc). For centuries in the Philippine Islands, teachers would only teach their own sons, grandsons or nephews or perhaps boys from their own village. There was no ranking as such. A man taught what he knew to his relatives and that was it.  No one questioned that the boys received the full teaching from their father or grandfather (and very often the very fact that they were being taught at all was kept a secret).